IS-Inspired Teenager Critically Wounds Four Aboard German Train

Four people were wounded on Monday July 18^th after a teenager carrying an axe and a knife attacked a group of people aboard a train in southern Germany. The axman began to attack passengers just as the train was reaching its last stop at Wuerzburg. Once the train reached its stop, the perpetrator left the train where he was pursued by police, who shot him dead after he stabbed a woman and attempted to assault police.

The axe-wielding assailant was identified as 17-year-old Muhammad Riyadh, a Pakistani national who posed as an Afghan refugee in order to gain asylum in Germany. Riyadh migrated to Germany as an unaccompanied minor two years ago and had been living with a foster family in the nearby town of Ochsenfurt; roughly 150,000 of the 1 million refugees living in Germany are Afghan, making his claim believable.

Upon searching his room, German police found a hand-painted IS flag but were unsure whether Riyadh was a member of the group. Bavarian Interior minister Joachim Hermann claimed that “We (the authorities) are aware of the claim of responsibility by Islamic State, but…the investigation has not produced any evidence thus far that would indicate this young man was part of an Islamist network.” Later however Amaq, the Islamic State’s news agency, released a video of the attacker holding a knife, saying, “I will carry out a suicide operation in Germany. I will slaughter you in your houses”. IS called the assailant a hero and urged other Muslims around the world to commit similar attacks.

The attacks came less than a week after an attack in Nice, France that left 84 people dead and 202 wounded; a Tunisian national drove a truck into crowds of people along a 1.5 mile section of the city’s promenade during its Bastille Day parade. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State, and the uncle of the attack has publicly claimed his relative was recruited by IS.  Despite this, French officials continue to express doubts regarding killer’s ties to the jihadist group.

The attack is likely to raise tensions in Germany and across  Europe, as the threat of both organized sleeper cells (as was the case in the Paris and Brussels attacks) and independently motivated jihadist attacks (as may have been the case in Nice and Wuerzburg) continue.

That the latest attack appears to have been conducted by an Islamic State supporter who entered Germany under false pretenses, may very well reinvigorate the debate over immigration policy and its relations to security.